1,517 passages in Rabbinic Midrash
Individual passages from Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, shown in source order. Page 29 of 32.
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael records a teaching by Rabbi Yishmael on the laws of bailment, drawn from (Exodus 22:6): "If a man give to his neighbor money or vessels to watch." Thi...
"This is the statute of the Paschal offering." The question that animates this passage of the Mekhilta is whether the verse legislates only the one-time Pesach eaten in Egypt on th...
The Mekhilta draws a legal principle from a seemingly mundane phrase about safekeeping. When the Torah discusses items entrusted to a guardian, it mentions "money or vessels." A si...
The Torah states a blunt exclusion about the Paschal lamb: "No stranger may eat of it." The Mekhilta explains who "stranger" includes, and the answer is broader than it first appea...
Rabbi Nathan expanded the scope of the deposit laws beyond their most obvious application. The Torah says that when someone deposits "money" with a neighbor for safekeeping, certai...
This midrash from the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael works through the law of the unpaid guardian (shomer chinam) who is entrusted with another's property that is later stolen. Scriptur...
"and you shall circumcise him; then shall he eat of it" (Exodus 12:44). The verse speaks of a purchased servant in the household of an Israelite, and the Mekhilta reads it as a law...
"if the thief is found, he pays double": A thief (one who steals by stealth) pays kefel, but not a robber (one who steals openly). Why did Scripture see fit to be more severe with ...
R. Eliezer addresses a question of eligibility for the Pesach (Passover) offering. The Torah is strict that an uncircumcised male may not eat from the Pesach, and one might assume ...
This teaching of the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael parses the law of the unpaid guardian whose deposit is stolen. The verse reads (Exodus 22:7) "If the thief not be found, then the mas...
Rabbi Akiva ruled that a Jewish master may not keep uncircumcised male servants in his household. Circumcision, the sign of the covenant between God and Abraham, was required of ev...
When a dispute over property arises and the facts remain unclear, the Torah provides a striking instruction: "Then the master of the house shall draw near" (Exodus 22:7). But draw ...
The Torah states "and you shall circumcise him; then he shall eat of it," establishing circumcision as a prerequisite for eating the Passover sacrifice. The Mekhilta uses this vers...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael examines the law of the unpaid watcher, the bailee who guards another's property without charge. Scripture says that when the deposited object is stol...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael here works through the laws of a paid guardian, the case of one entrusted with a neighbor's property that is then lost or damaged. The verse describes...
R. Eliezer says: What is the intent of "toshav and sachir"? (i.e. Is it not already written [(Exodus 12:43)] "No stranger may eat of it"?) To reason from Pesach (Passover) to terum...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael here demonstrates one of the formal rules of scriptural interpretation by which the sages drew law from the text. The verse on disputed property reads...
Rabbi Yitzchak posed a sharp question about what appeared to be a redundant verse. The Torah states that a toshav (resident alien) and a sachir (hired worker) may not eat of the Pa...
The passage of the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael works through the laws of guardians who watch over property for others. Scripture presents two cases. In the first (Exodus 22:6) "If a ...
Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai tackled a puzzle in the laws of the Passover sacrifice. The Torah states: "In one house shall it be eaten" (Exodus 12:46). Does this mean literally one phys...
The Mekhilta examines a precise legal scenario in the laws of property disputes. When one person claims "this is mine" and another says "it is not exactly this," the sages derived ...
Having established that the Pesach (Passover) sacrifice could be eaten "in two places" by a single group, Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai was asked the obvious follow-up question: how exac...
How many judges does it take to decide a monetary dispute in Jewish law? The Mekhilta traces the answer to a single passage in (Exodus 22:7-8), where the word "elohim", meaning jud...
(Ibid. 46) "Do not take from the house outside": the Mekhilta first settles what "outside" means in the law of the Pesach (Passover) offering. The verse forbids carrying the meat o...
Rabbi Yonathan tackled a fundamental question in Jewish jurisprudence: how do we know that a beth din, a rabbinic court, must consist of three judges? The answer, he demonstrated, ...
The Torah commands regarding the Passover sacrifice: "you shall not take out of the house." But take what out of the house? The Mekhilta clarifies that Scripture is speaking specif...
Rebbi, Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, analyzed the phrase "until elohim shall come the matter of both" (Exodus 22:8), which describes disputes brought before judges. The verse speaks of "bo...
The Torah issues a distinctive command about the Passover sacrifice: "And a bone shall you not break in it" (Exodus 12:46). The Mekhilta asks a deceptively simple question, does th...
The prohibition against breaking the bones of the Pesach (Passover) sacrifice includes two seemingly small words that carry enormous legal weight: "in it." The Mekhilta zeroes in o...
"He shall pay double to his neighbor", the Torah requires a thief who is caught to pay twice the value of what he stole. But Rabbi Shimon noticed a conflict with another verse. (Le...
The Torah commands: "The entire congregation of Israel shall offer it" (Exodus 12:47). The Mekhilta asks why this verse is necessary at all, given that the Torah already instructed...
The Torah states: "And if there live with you a stranger, and he would offer a Pesach (Passover) to the Lord" (Exodus 12:48). The Mekhilta immediately identifies a potential misund...
Conversion raises a tricky legal puzzle when it happens at the wrong time of year. Rabbi Shimon, quoted in the Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael (a halakhic midrash (rabbinic interpretive ...
Rabbi Yishmael, one of the foremost masters of legal interpretation in the early rabbinic period, reads the phrase "let all of his males be circumcised" (Exodus 12:48) as a binding...
Rabbi Yonathan addressed a legal puzzle hidden inside the Passover laws. The Torah says "let all of his males be circumcised, and then he shall draw near to offer it." A straightfo...
Rabbi Nathan found a specific legal scenario embedded in the verse "let all of his males be circumcised." The phrase excludes a particular case from preventing a master's participa...
The Mekhilta preserves a remarkable legal case involving a woman named Beluria, a proselytess, a non-Jewish woman who converted to Judaism. Beluria owned several maid-servants, and...
The Torah declares: "And every uncircumcised one shall not eat of it." The Mekhilta asks a pointed question: why is this verse necessary at all? The Torah already stated "No strang...
"One Torah shall there be for the citizen and for the stranger" (Exodus 12:49). This verse, one of the most sweeping declarations of equality in the Torah, might seem redundant. Af...
God spoke to Moses with a command that sounds absolute: "Sanctify unto Me every first-born" (Exodus 13:1-2). Every first-born, of humans, of animals, of everything that opens the w...
The Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael records a teaching by Rabbi Yishmael on the laws governing an unpaid bailee who is entrusted with livestock. The verse states: "If a man give to his n...
"Sanctify unto Me every first-born", generic (implying both males and females). (Devarim 15:19) "the male", specific, (excluding females). If I have the generic, why do I need the ...
"An ass or an ox or a lamb", the Torah lists three specific animals in the context of deposit law. But the Mekhilta asks: what about all other domesticated animals? Are only these ...
The Torah states: "in man and beast, he is Mine" (Exodus 13:2), declaring God's ownership of every first-born. The Mekhilta draws from this verse a principle of elegant symmetry: w...
"And it die", the Torah describes what happens when a deposited animal dies in the guardian's care. The Mekhilta specifies: "at the hands of Heaven." This means natural death, the ...
Variantly: The bechor of a man is likened to the bechor of a beast, and the bechor of a beast to the bechor of a man. Just as with a beast, a miscarriage (of the first pregnancy) e...
Rabbi Akiva challenged Rabbi Eliezer's reasoning. You are deriving what is possible from what is impossible, he argued. Natural death is always beyond human control, it is impossib...
The Torah declares of every first-born: "he is Mine." But elsewhere, God commands: "the male shall you sanctify to the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 15:19). The Mekhilta spots a tens...
